I've got to the stage where I can remember the MO of each member. There are some whom I treat with the respect that their sanity and wisdom has earned them, two outstanding, one more intellectually superior, but innately mischievous and irrepressible (he's here in this thread), a couple of dozen broadminded and thinking people, and the stereotypical. Even that last category can be spotted by the axes they carry to grind. The member I was teasing is one such; he is a one-trick pony. Ask him to define what he will accept and he is lost. I know the reply, and shall not deny myself the pleasure of receiving it.
@hellfire
Sorry to interrupt your packing, but just read on.
In the Mahabharata, it is related that on one occasion, a great Kaurava warrior released the Pawanastra. Krishna realised what had been done, and shouted at the Pandavas to lie flat on the ground. They all did, and the power shrieked and wailed about their ears but to no avail - till it suddenly flared up in intensity, to the point where the whole earth was in danger. Krishna looked around, and was startled to see a stubborn Bhim standing upright, fighting the weapon. He grabbed him and brought him down, on which the power found nothing to overthrow and dissipated itself.
With Rusty and with LastofthePatriots, or however he spells his name, that is what needs to be done.Both are nice chaps, who put on war paint and hone their tomahawks only at the end of any long and acrimonious thread. They are both too easy-going to persist.
Trying that with Areesh would not work, obviously.
With Indus Pakistan, it's quite different again. There is the socialist intellectual, one of high quality, but one who has a streak of contrariness in him. At those times, he goes hyper-patriot; I think it's a duty thing. For him, it's paying to ignore the hyper-patriot bits and wait patiently for the outrageously clever bits. If we can sucker him into a thread on the One-Nation, Two-Nation and Westphalian models, we are in for a treat. He's always good on solid things like that. The rest of it is going out for a beer with the lads.